Approved by the What’s Up Moms Medical Advisory Board
Some new parents aim to leave the house as little as possible in the first year of baby’s life. You know: Keep it simple, stay low to the ground, and by all means, don’t embark on travel if you don’t have to. After all, if the grandparents are willing to come to you, why bother? Pass the #barfbag.
Actually, though, nine months is a pretty good age for travel, considering baby doesn’t walk yet. (Or run.) (Away from you and into the TSA screening area.) But we digress. Seriously, this can be a great little pocket of time for a getaway whether by plane, train or automobile.
Keep your eye out for the travel guide we’re putting together on our site; we’ll be posting meaty travel tips, including great ones for flying. Like – TSA will let you bring milk through! Bring doggie poop bags for grody diapers on the plane and your hotel room! Use your stroller as a luggage carrier!
In the meantime here are a handful of travel tips that we here at WUM learned by trial and error, AKA the hard way, so you don’t have to:
If you’re flying…
Start with shorter flights – for baby’s sake and yours. Better than a cross-country trip or a jaunt to Europe (lordy lordy), if you can help it.
If you’re on a long flight, try to time it with baby’s naptime, and, if at all possible, purchase a ticket for baby so she can sleep in her car seat, sparing you a several hour-long wrestling match with a lap infant, aka slippery seal. (Often, if you book a window and an aisle, you’ll luck out with an empty middle seat – but it’s a gamble.)
Bring a blanket for floor play during airport downtime. Your mission: to exhaust.
If you’re staying in a hotel…
Hotels can almost always provide you with a portable crib, and if you tell them you’re breastfeeding (whether you are or not), often they’ll also give you a microwave and mini fridge.
A roomy, well-ventilated bathroom is clutch so you can set up the portable crib in there. Otherwise, come 7pm, you grownups will be sitting silently in the dark and communicating by text and eating Chipotle in the hall.
If you’re in a rental home (AirBnB or the like)…
Obvious plusses: 1) a separate room for baby, and 2) a kitchen. And did you know you can rent gear like high chairs, travel cribs, monitors, strollers and even toys?
Traveling with baby is the kind of thing that gets way easier the more you do it. Once you have those first few outings under your belt, you’ll feel unstoppable.
